first night

Tonight was the first night of our show about Stendhal, 'Fabrice et Gina', in Grenoble. There were, despite funky posters all over this rather ugly town, twenty people in the audience. Most of them were from the Musiciens du Louvre Office. Hope they enjoyed our base lines in Haydn, Cimarossa, Rossini et al which, as instructed by our chefesse, we made sure were on a 'nuage' not a 'fauteil'. A friend of a friend in the audience and with whom we drank afterwards said music had literally saved her life so it made it all worthwhile.

During the day I climbed a small mountain (nt as nice as ours)to have a small salad and, surrounded by snowy peaks, contemplate my life and my marriage: It clearly needs some attention but I have lots of ideas. For now, trust me when I say I do not intend to be on tour for this many months ever again because I have found who and what I have been searching for for forty years and they are at the foot of the Mont Ventoux waiting for me to come home.

ps. over dinner, because some poor sod was eating andouillettes, my colleague Genevieve informed me of a french delicacy hitherto unknown to me: 'amourettes'. She described it thus:

"The nerf of the private part of the cochon"

Figurez-vous..........................